ABSTRACT
The student of Anselm is bound to be apprehensive when writing yet another commentary on his works. The sheer volume of material produced on the influence and persuasiveness of the ontological argument is enough to warrant caution to any potential pupil. Work on Anselm’s doctrine of the atonement is no less daunting since it too has yielded a prodigious amount of scholarship in the nine hundred years since its formulation. As for the amount of work that has been done on his monastic context, not to mention the political or social context, here too the reader discovers an embarrassment of riches. What reason, then, could anyone have for turning up what already appears to be well-tilled soil?
